Court to sentence van Gogh killer
The man who confessed to killing film-maker Theo van Gogh in a murder that stunned the Netherlands will be sentenced today.
The case heightened ethnic tensions and raised concerns about home-grown Islamic terrorism.
Prosecutors have demanded a life sentence for 27-year-old Mohammed Bouyeri, who mounted no defence at his two-day trial in Amsterdam earlier this month for van Gogh’s murder on November 2.
In a surprise courtroom declaration, Bouyeri said he had acted in the name of Islam and felt no pain for van Gogh’s family. After reciting Islamic prayers, he told the courtroom that if given the chance he would “do exactly the same thing”.
The crime is being tried as an act of terrorism because prosecutors said van Gogh was ritually killed by a Muslim radical. The killer shot him, stabbed him and cut his throat, then impaled a letter in the film-maker’s chest threatening Dutch politicians.
“What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith,” he told the court. “I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet.”
Bouyeri is the son of Moroccan immigrants, but was raised and educated in the Netherlands.
Van Gogh, a distant relative of the famous painter, was a social critic and columnist who attacked the treatment of women in fundamentalist Islamic households in a short film, Submission, which offended many Muslims.
The film’s scriptwriter was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of parliament who went into hiding for several months after van Gogh’s murder because she was named in the note left on the corpse.
Bouyeri was arrested in a shootout with police minutes after he shot van Gogh repeatedly at close range and nearly cut off his head. He is charged with murder, attempted murder of police officers and bystanders, and impeding democracy.
Speaking in court to the police officers who arrested him, the defendant said he had intended to kill them and die a martyr in the defence of Islam.
The killing led to dozens of arson attacks against Islamic schools and mosques and has strained relations with the country’s one million Muslim immigrants.
Legal experts cite Bouyeri’s intent to shock Dutch society and undermine democracy as justification enough for the three judges to hand down a life sentence, the toughest punishment under Dutch law.
But many mention his claim that he would kill again for the three judges to hand down the maximum sentence.
He is allegedly a member of a terrorist cell known as the Hofstad Network and is said to have attended private prayer sessions with a Syrian spiritual leader, Redouan al-Issar, who is reportedly in custody in Damascus, Syria.
Tomorrow, another Dutch court will review the case of a dozen suspected Hofstad Network members. Although they were not accused of having links to van Gogh’s murder, prosecutors say they were plotting other terrorist attacks.
